The photo of an alleged UFO in Chile has left more than one viewer startled after that country's Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anomalos (CEFAA) confirmed its authenticity.

The image was taken in the area known as El Yeso Reservoir by a Venezuelan couple living in the southern country. The image was investigated by CEFFA through its director general, Gen. Ricardo Bermudez (Ret.).

"After considerable research time we reached a series of conclusions that are the same obtained in the United States, and which are: this photograph is real and not a hoax; Second, that the incidence of the light in these clouds is the same as that which falls upon the object; Third, that it has its own light, and therefore a series of portholes are visible. This is according to our Ph.D in meteorology, and according to the clouds existing at the time during that season in the Cordillera, makes it twice the size of the National Stadium (in Chile)," he told Terra Chile.

"We do not know what it is or where it came from, but the anomalous aerial phenomenon described as an unidentified flying object is real and we have the proof and the eyewitness accounts to support it," notes Bermudez, who was a military pilot for the Chilean Air Force, flying F-5 fighters among other craft.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 shifted to another section of the southern Indian Ocean on Friday after new analysis by investigators indicated that the aircraft was traveling faster than previously thought — and therefore ran out of fuel much sooner.

The new search area is 680 miles northeast of where planes and ships have been scouring the waters for signs of the vanished Boeing 777. It is also four times as large — 198,200 square miles, compared to the 48,500-square-mile patch of ocean where the search had been focused, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

After a week when the search for the aircraft seemed to be making progress, with satellite images showing hundreds of objects floating in the water, the sudden shift of the search area to the northeast on Friday essentially put the the massive effort back at square one, experts said.

“We are starting on a blank page,” said Charitha Pattiaratchi, a professor of coastal oceanography at the University of Western Australia who studies this corner of the Indian Ocean. “We are in exactly the same situation we were in one week ago.”

On Friday, observers on five aircraft saw multiple objects of different colors as they searched the updated area. A New Zealand plane saw a number of objects described as “white or light.” Another Australian aircraft located the items seen by the New Zealand plane and saw two blue-gray rectangular objects. Yet another plane saw more objects in another area more than 300 miles away.

AMSA said photos were taken and would be assessed overnight. The team will likely send out ships Saturday to investigate further and try to confirm whether the debris is related to the missing plane.

The redirection of the search comes as a result of analysis of radar data collected as the plane traveled between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, before contact was lost, AMSA said. Those data show that the aircraft traveled faster than investigators thought, burned its fuel more quickly, and therefore traveled a shorter distance, according to the Australians.

Authorities said they believe the new search area includes the spot where the flight ended its mysterious March 8 journey. The plane, carrying 239 passengers and crew, was supposed to fly north from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing but abruptly turned sharply westward an hour into the journey, then headed south with its various communications systems all off line, a sequence of events that investigators are still trying to unravel.

Friday’s development suggests that the phase of the search that began March 18 in the southern Indian Ocean — and seemed to be steadily homing in on a smaller portion of it — has been on the wrong track for more than a week.

The new area, though, is much closer to Perth, which will give planes more time to search, said Australian officials. And it moves the operation away from the turbulent part of the ocean known as the “Roaring Forties” to a region where Pattiaratchi said winds and currents are much calmer.

It is not clear how authorities are now regarding the other objects spotted by satellites in recent days, floating in an area far to the southwest of the refocused search.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the objects seen in those satellite images are still potentially pieces of the missing plane or its cargo since ocean drift and the unpredictable currents in that part of the ocean could account for their location.

But Pattiaratchi, the currents expert, said there is “absolutely no chance” the objects picked up in satellite images drifted so far southwest from the area new being searched. The new section being searched and the old one, he said, are in completely different systems of currents, and it’s unlikely for objects to move from one to another. If they did, he said, it would take several years.

Australian officials said the new lead was based on continued analysis of information pieced together from radar and satellite data during the course of the investigation.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said on Friday that the decision to shift the search farther north came from a closer analysis of the existing data, rather than from new information.

The Australian-led search has spent several days trying to track down debris detected by various satellites, which had offered the strongest leads until now in the hunt for the plane. But so far, observers on low-flying planes and on ships have come up empty handed.

On Monday, a Thai satellite spotted at least 300 floating objects in the southern Indian Ocean, where authorities say the plane went down almost three weeks ago, a Thai official said Thursday.

The images were taken by the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency, a Thai space research agency, and show objects more than 1,600 miles southwest of Perth, said Anond Snidvongs, executive director of the agency.

“I wouldn’t say the debris is from the Malaysia Airlines flight,” Anond said by telephone from Bangkok, adding that analysts could not be certain. “We just spotted a lot of floating objects.”

He said the items were as small as 6 1/2 feet and as long as 52 1/2 feet. They were seen about 124 miles from where French satellites detected a group of more than 100 objects earlier in the week.

The ships and planes looking for the missing passenger jet immediately changed their routes on Friday to reflect the new analysis. As of early afternoon, four of the 10 aircraft working on the search were in the updated region, and six more planes were expected to join them. One Chinese patrol ship was already there, with six more ships on the way. An Australian naval ship is due to arrive Saturday night.

Between bad weather and the unpredictable interplay of wind and ocean currents, observers have run into a series of dead ends.

Wednesday’s search area, for example, included the location where a French satellite detected signs of 122 objects. Observers saw three items in the area late in the day: two that were likely rope plus a blue object. When planes flew overhead again to take a look, they could not spot them.

The search team is racing to identify a likely crash site so that the operation can focus next on finding the all-important black box containing cockpit audio and flight data. U.S. Navy equipment that can listen for “pings” from the black box has arrived in Perth, according to Australian officials. An Australian navy support vessel that can tow the pinger locator underwater is supposed to arrive within days. The black box will emit signals for 30 days, meaning there is a little more than a week left to find it before it goes silent. The depth of the water in the new area is between 1.2 miles and 2.5 miles, Australian officials said.

Australian authorities described on Friday trying to piece together a puzzle using different sources of data: from radar, satellites and what manufacturers know about the plane’s performance, among other factors.

“There are a range of scenarios that had to be fed in, and that’s one of the reasons why the search area remains a very large one,” said Dolan. “And this is something that we probably should underline. . . . This is still an attempt to search a very large area and for surface debris, which will give us an indication of where the main aircraft wreckage is likely to be. This has a long way to go.”

GREAT SPIRITS ALWAYS ENCOUNTER THE MOST VIOLENT OPPOSITION FROM MEDIOCRE MINDS E=MC2

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Re: Stuff & Nonsense« Reply #10357 on: Mar 28th, 2014, 11:13am »

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LOVE THE PIC ~ ART REFLECTING LIFE ~ MOST ARE STUDYING THE BOARD ~ VLAD STUDIES THE PEOPLE ~ IF YOUR NOT 5-7 STEPS AHEAD ~ YOUR A SPECTATOR IN CHESS...

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GREAT SPIRITS ALWAYS ENCOUNTER THE MOST VIOLENT OPPOSITION FROM MEDIOCRE MINDS E=MC2

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Re: Stuff & Nonsense« Reply #10358 on: Mar 28th, 2014, 2:06pm »

http://www.wired.com/design/2014/03/warka-water-africa/#slide-id-451241Around the world, 768 million people don’t have access to safe water, and every day 1,400 children under the age of five die from water-based diseases. Designer Arturo Vittori believes the solution to this catastrophe lies not in high technology, but in sculptures that look like giant-sized objects from the pages of a Pier 1 catalog.

His stunning water towers stand nearly 30 feet tall and can collect over 25 gallons of potable water per day by harvesting atmospheric water vapor. Called WarkaWater towers, each pillar is comprised of two sections: a semi-rigid exoskeleton built by tying stalks of juncus or bamboo together and an internal plastic mesh, reminiscent of the bags oranges come in. The nylon and polypropylene fibers act as a scaffold for condensation, and as the droplets of dew form, they follow the mesh into a basin at the base of the structure.

UFO or secret fighter jet? The mysterious triangular craft pictured flying over TexasAviation experts believe plane could be a secret military prototypeSay it could be a high precision stealth bomberBelieved to be a manned craft

By Mark Prigg

PUBLISHED: 13:52 EST, 28 March 2014 UPDATED: 15:24 EST, 28 March 2014

It has baffled aviation experts and UFO spotters alike.

This mysterious triangle shaped craft has been spotted flying high in the sky over Texas.

Yet nobody has been able to identify the mystery craft - or even rule out the possibility it is a UFO.

Expert believe they could be classified military craft.

'Classified programs have been exposed in all sorts of ways - for example, the A-12 Blackbird was disclosed under a degree of pressure,' Bill Sweetman of Aviation Week said.

'It's not merely logical to expect that numerous classified aircraft programs exist: it's almost a necessity.'

Good afternoon from the Netherlands back at'ya, and all enjoying this forum, Crystal! You must be right about that good day, yet reading that latest on MH370 I have a bad feeling: searchers seem to generate about one all new and fresh analysis per day, again shifting to another swath of ocean apparently filled with 'promising' debris. Feels like they are getting into a pattern of searches covering planet Earth, surely there are brightly colored rectangular/triangular pieces of plywood scattered everywhere for our satellites to zoom in on! Whole circus makes me worry this plane with 239 souls aboard is truly lost. Is it really possible to get on a modern jetliner never to be seen/heard of again?

purr

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Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

Good afternoon from the Netherlands back at'ya, and all enjoying this forum, Crystal! You must be right about that good day, yet reading that latest on MH370 I have a bad feeling: searchers seem to generate about one all new and fresh analysis per day, again shifting to another swath of ocean apparently filled with 'promising' debris. Feels like they are getting into a pattern of searches covering planet Earth, surely there are brightly colored rectangular/triangular pieces of plywood scattered everywhere for our satellites to zoom in on! Whole circus makes me worry this plane with 239 souls aboard is truly lost. Is it really possible to get on a modern jetliner never to be seen/heard of again?

purr

Good morning Purr

The whole thing is awful all the way around. Either they were taken somewhere and the plane will be used at a later date or it went down in the ocean. Awful.

It was a few days after the 4th of July of 1960, the day a UFO circled the Empire State Building.

Tom was a broadcast engineer in New York City. He worked on the 16th floor of a building on West 50th/51st Street next to the Taft Hotel.

Tom says he first noticed the object simply as a black dot in the sky coming from the southwest on a northeasterly course. Of course Tom was puzzled by what he was watching for nearly ten minutes. Then a colleague in an adjoining studio area hollered, “What the hell is that thing?”

The two men watched with great interest as the black object drew closer while seeming to maintain altitude. Tom tells us, “The object itself was spherical, and it was flat black with no windows. It was about 16 feet tall and not quite as wide. It had winglets that sloped down from the middle as it also sloped up from the middle. The object undulated from side to side at a constant rate throughout. About twenty or so degrees one way and then tilted the same in the other direction.”

The object reduced its speed and began to slowly circle the Empire State Building at a distance of perhaps twenty feet from the windows on the 100th floor. By this time, Tom was being joined by other broadcast engineers as they watched in awe at the scene playing out a mere 16 blocks away on 34th Street at the Empire State Building.

Tom tells us that a colleague telephoned engineers staffing the transmitter site high up at Empire State Building but folks there could see nothing of the object that was circling the skyscraper.

Back at the 51st Street location more than 20 broadcasting engineers and news staff had gathered including the Director of News for the Mutual Radio Network. All of them were witnessing this incredible event until the object leisurely left the area returning on the path where it came from.

The peculiar thing that occurred wasn’t the sighting of the UFO but rather the lack of reporting of the event. In a room full of broadcast news professionals this event was never publicly reported. Tom doesn’t tell us why this happened. In fact, Tom only reported this event in recent years to MUFON. He does tell us that not long ago he saw a program on cable television that showed a UFO filmed near a building in Mexico. What rattled him was that the UFO in Mexico was identical to the one that he and his colleagues observed on that hot July afternoon 54 years ago.

“I realize this is a most strange sighting, especially since people only feet from it and looking through a window saw nothing…” Tom explained.

Finally Tom remarked, “…it remains relatively fresh in my memory."

Let’s look at some recent New York sightings:

2 March 2014: at about 10:15 a.m. a motorist and passengers were traveling East on State Route 252 near Rochester. They witnessed what at first appeared to be reflections on the windshield. Then after closer examination they saw about ten tall cylinders hovering high in the sky. They say that the objects had a transparent quality but were emitting a white glow that made them visible.

7 March 2014: at about 11 p.m. a Hamburg woman noted that the family dog was “going nuts.” She and her boyfriend went outside and saw a bright orange fireball, like object silently flying above the tree tops in the neighborhood, heading north. She reported the sighting to local authorities and police showed up and politely took her sighting report. She states the sighting was “miraculous.”

7 March 2015: At about 12:30 a.m. a Kingston woman and her husband observed a large rectangular fireball like object moving silently from the west to the east then turning north before going out of sight.

9 March 2014: at about 8:45 p.m. a Commack resident saw two orange, fuzzy, fireballs flying together. They were maneuvering side to side before splitting up. The two fireballs took off in opposite directions at tremendous speed and made no sound.

11 March 2014: at about 4 a.m. a Guilderland resident observed ten bright lights traveling together In and out of formation. Some were faster than others and still others were weaving side to side.

11 March 2014: at about 11 p.m. a Brooklyn resident noticed a silver bullet-cylinder shaped object hovering stationary high up in the sky to the right of 2nd & 3rd Avenue, around 35th Street. He says the object was not moving, made no sound and that didn’t have any wings or propellers. He says, “It wasn’t a blimp!”

14 March 2014: at about 10 p.m. a Rochester resident went outside for a smoke and observed four white lights within a cloud rotating two at a time.

10 very good reasons not to believe Vladimir Putin when he says he's totally not going to invade eastern Ukraine.

BY Michael Weiss MARCH 28, 2014

Late on Friday afternoon, news broke that Russian President Vladimir Putin had called President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss the possibility of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Crimea. The two agreed to dispatch their chief emissaries to talk details about how to diffuse the situation. But while a settlement might now be a possibility, United States and NATO intelligence assessments agree that the likelihood of Russian troops crossing the border into eastern (and possibly northern and southern) Ukraine grows by the hour. So, is this another Putin psych-out? It may well be.

Here are 10 facts on the ground that add up to a very real chance that Russia might still invade Ukraine:

1. The size of troop movements, and the field hospitals.

As of this writing, Russia has amassed as many as 50,000 troops at various points along the Ukrainian border, including in Russian-occupied Crimea. Videos uploaded to the Internet show armored vehicles being taken off flatbed freight trains in Voronezh, a city northeast of Ukraine's Kharkiv, and in Novozybkov, which is 50 miles north of Kiev. (Tanks there are already rolling on the ground, in fact.) The Russians have also moved food, medicine, and spare parts into position, which would not be needed for any short-term military "springtime exercises," as the Defense Ministry now claims is all they're up to. A field hospital has been erected in the Bryansk region, as Voice of America reported: that's just 12 miles away from Ukraine's eastern border, which is now heavily monitored by Russian drones. Furthermore, Moscow has resorted to subterfuge to hide its activities -- not a terribly good sign of its sincerity. U.S. signals intelligence has been hindered by old-school tactics, including the use of couriers who deliver messaging from the army's High Command to commanders in the field. A senior U.S. military official told the Wall Street Journal: "They have moved into concealed positions," almost certainly to evade American spy satellites. If Russia wanted to reassure Washington that it was only staging drills, it would broadcast its movements and activities, not conceal them. "We've seen no specific indications that exercises are taking place," said the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, on Thursday. Russia has enough men and firepower to reach the separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova, according to NATO's supreme allied commander Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove. Meanwhile, Moldova Prime Minister Iurie Leanca sees "provocations" by the illegal statelet-within-a-state as likely. Let's not forget that the last time Russia held an impromptu military "exercise," it invaded and lopped off Crimea.

2. Putin enjoys embarrassing the United States, and especially its current commander-in-chief.

On Feb. 28, Obama warned that "there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine" -- before high-tailing it to a Democratic National Committee cocktail party at the Washington Hilton. The next day, the world awoke to a Russian invasion of Crimea. "Rarely has a threat from a U.S. president been dismissed as quickly -- and comprehensively -- as Obama's warning on Friday night," the Washington Post's Scott Wilson reported. And let's look at the laundry list of American desires and warnings the Kremlin has brushed aside: Russia has dramatically increased its arms transfers to Syria since the chemical disarmament deal was struck last fall. It continues to host fugitive NSA spy Edward Snowden. And during the midst of the Maidan protests, Russia's own spies intercepted a phone call between a top U.S. State Department official and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, then leaked the contents of it to Kremlin-controlled media. Moreover, neither Putin nor his inner circle seem terribly aggravated by the current suite of U.S. or EU sanctions or the blockbuster admission by the Treasury Department that Putin -- now a staunch patriotic proponent of the "de-offshoreization" of the Russian economy -- personally controls assets in Swiss oil commodities giant Gunvor.

3. The IMF bailout.

The International Monetary Fund's assistance package to Ukraine was announced yesterday. It amounts to $18 billion to be dispensed over two years, and to which can be added the $14 billion already promised to Ukraine by other international contributors, such as the United States and European Union. That's a serious amount of money to help fish a floundering country out of a deep financial soup, and it well exceeds the bribe Putin offered Viktor Yanukovych to scrap the association agreement with the EU, which led to the revolution in Kiev. Yes, the IMF loan comes with conditions, particularly in Ukraine's energy sector. State gas company Naftohaz will have to be restructured and consumers will have to pay higher energy prices, which might not go down so well in the Maidan. But even so, Putin has been written out of his decade-long role as the dark lord of Ukraine's volatile and expensive gas industry. I wonder how that makes him feel. Clearly, he would now prefer the total collapse of Ukrainian state institutions and its market economy to an IMF-facilitated stability. And who better to guarantee a reconstruction effort than conveniently located Russian troops?

4. Putin has seen how reliably the U.S. policy establishment has done his work for him already.

How he must love it when the former director of Policy Planning at the State Department Anne-Marie Slaughter publishes an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing, inter alia, that the annexation of Crimea was legally and morally equivalent to NATO's intervention in Kosovo (conveniently forgetting that the latter stopped a genocide waged by a former Communist apparatchik turned pan-Slavic nationalist). This equivalence is exactly what Kremlin propaganda has maintained. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's vice president for studies, Andrew Weiss, told the New York Times two days ago that Brussels is to blame for precipitating Russia's aggression by pursuing an association agreement with Ukraine in the first place. Putin couldn't agree more. All of the Beltway's best and brightest, who now profess to be in a state of total shock at the erosion of the post-Cold War order, nevertheless agree that the priority for the United States is to mollify rather than antagonize an angry bear. This is not a message lost on its subject. Putin must reckon that if his tanks roll into Kiev next Wednesday, those advising Obama will say, "Well, we mustn't upset him more because then he might invade Warsaw." (And judging from American rhetoric, Putin might be right about that.)

5. Well, seriously, what are we going to do about it?

As Russian armored personnel carriers and paratroopers move into position, John Kerry's spokesperson, Jennifer Psaki, tweeted this: "Watching huge Russian military buildup on #Ukraine's borders: dangerous intimidation #RussiaIsolated." That'll teach ‘em. Does the administration not see the futility in accusing Putin of playing by 19th-century rules using 21st-century media he's looking to censor, disrupt, or eventually shut down? How many divisions has the hashtag? Indeed, no one at any senior level in the U.S. government or NATO is contemplating a military response to an invasion of the Ukrainian mainland and the dismemberment of a European country. And Putin knows it. There's not even a bluff he has to call.

6. Listen to what the Kremlin functionaries are saying.

Yesterday, as the United Nations General Assembly voted to reaffirm Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty, Russia's ambassador to that body, Vitaly Churkin, accused the U.S. embassy in Kiev of hosting the real shooters of Maidan demonstrators. Last week, Russia's insane propagandist-in-chief Dmitry Kiselyov took to the airwaves of his brand-new disinformation clearinghouse, Rossiya Segodnya, to remind viewers: "Russia is the only country in the world which is really capable of turning the USA into radioactive ash." Does this sound like a government looking for an "off-ramp" to an imminent confrontation with the West?

7. Russia's military and arms trade relies on Ukraine.

A little-noticed item in Sovershenno Sekretno, a Moscow-based magazine, authored by Vladimir Voronov, appeared in late February making the case for why Russia would indeed mount incursions into Ukraine. The most salient reason given was that, contrary to conventional wisdom that Ukraine's military depends on Russia, the situation is actually the other way around: Russia's military-industrial complex needs Ukraine's manufacturing resources. "It is difficult to overestimate the significance of Motor Sich for our aviation at least because its engines are used in all our helicopters, including the combat ones," Voronov wrote, referring to Ukraine's aircraft engine company. "It also remains the supplier of engines for aircraft used by the Russian Air Force and civilian airlines." The Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv alone hosts three different shipbuilding facilities, without which, Voronov says, "Russian shipbuilders cannot handle the ambitious program of rearming their own fleet." And the Ukrainian state-owned design bureaus Pivdenne and Pivdenmash are also necessary for Moscow's nuclear missile upgrades.